


you must be trouble for sure

by psycheDahlia



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: (as a canon typical dark humor joke), First Meetings, High School, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, brief mention of molestation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:56:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psycheDahlia/pseuds/psycheDahlia
Summary: There’s only one other person at the bus stop as Charlie walks up, and he’s sitting on the wall, legs crossed at the ankle and listening to a walkman. Charlie doesn’t think he recognizes him, so he’s probably not another transfer from St. Vincent’s. He’s tall, Mac’s height, dressed like something out of Grease. Charlie’s first thought is “Mac would cream his jeans over this guy”, and he’s fairly certain Mac absolutely would - his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket, his brownish-blonde hair slicked back like James Dean, a lit cigarette poking out the side of his lips and an unlit one tucked behind his ear.(a freeform series of shorts revolving around dennis and charlie in high school)





	you must be trouble for sure

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from "hot thoughts" by spoon

The sun is just starting to come out, tinting the day purple with an optimistic orange tinge, but all Charlie Kelly can focus on is how his new school shoes don’t really fit.

He’d lied and said they did, because they were the newest-looking ones at the thrift store, and Charlie thought he might kinda recognize the shape of the name on them which meant they probably were kinda expensive when the original kid bought them, and he always wanted to be the kind of kid where their mom took them to Sears or whatever and they got to pick out a brand new pair of shoes with an expensive-shaped name on them, and that was about the closest Charlie had ever felt to being that kind of kid, so the idea of putting those shoes back on the shelf and buying the beat-up-but-technically-his-size shoes next to them made his throat kinda hurt.

He’d also snagged this really cool, probably authentic army jacket on the same thrift store trip. Had patches on it and everything, which made his mom somehow think it was a “Boy Scout jacket”, because she remembered the way the Girl Scouts at the grocery store the week before had patches on their sashes? He didn’t bother correcting her, because his mom got really upset and worried about anything violent and he knew if she found out it was called an _army_ jacket she wouldn’t buy it for him, so he went along with it until he was wearing it out of the store, planning to tell her once it was bought and there was no going back, but then when he was sitting in the car it felt really nice, the way it went kinda long and covered up his hands and he could fiddle with the little ridge of hemmed fabric on the inside of the sleeve cuff without anyone really noticing and telling him to stop fidgeting. He really liked the feel of the army jacket, to the point that he didn’t want it to be tainted by his mom making that mouth-twisty face she did whenever Charlie did something she didn’t like but wasn’t going to say anything about, so he never did tell her it wasn’t a Boy Scout jacket after all. He’d kind of been wearing it every day since he got it.

When he came running down the housewares aisle clutching it, his mom had softly warned him that they wouldn’t have money for new shirts and jeans along with the jacket, so Charlie’s just wearing a pair of Mac’s hand-me-down jeans (because Mrs. Mac stops by a couple times a year with a few garbage bags of Mac’s old stuff, asking Bonnie to ‘do her a favor and rehome them’; Mrs. Mac might actually be half cigarette by now, but her heart’s in the right place) and a t-shirt that he thinks he may have owned since literally kindergarten. Somehow he never seems to really outgrown any of his t-shirts - over the years they just go from massively oversized to fitting maybe a hair too snug. This one’s getting pretty tight, but it’s also worn down thin and buttery-smooth, and he likes the way it feels against his stomach.

It’s actually the first time in Charlie’s life he’s been allowed to go to school in an outfit of his choosing; St. Vincent’s had a strict uniform policy, so he’s wearing the comfiest clothes he owns. He’d snagged a tube of glue out of his garage that he’s been sniffing at on his way over, so his head is nicely cloudy and all the colors seem extra vivid, and so far it’s been a pretty decent first day of school.

The bus stop is just outside Stephanie Kochmanski’s house. Steph herself isn’t out at the bus stop, because Steph graduated 2 years ago and goes to State now and probably isn’t even inside the house in the first place, but it’s a distinctive enough house that everyone knows it’s Stephanie Kochmanski’s house. It’s made entirely of red brick, it’s the biggest house on the block, and it’s bordered by a matching waist-high brick wall that extends all the way down to the sidewalk. There’s only one other person at the bus stop as Charlie walks up, and he’s sitting on the wall, legs crossed at the ankle and listening to a walkman.

Charlie doesn’t think he recognizes him, so he’s probably not another transfer from St. Vincent’s. He’s tall, Mac’s height, dressed like something out of Grease. Charlie’s first thought is “Mac would cream his jeans over this guy”, and he’s fairly certain Mac absolutely would - his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket, his brownish-blonde hair slicked back like James Dean, a lit cigarette poking out the side of his lips and an unlit one tucked behind his ear.

Charlie shuffles into place a reasonable distance away, the distance that Charlie has learned from years of bus stop experience means “I am not standing so close as to imply we’re friends, but not so far away as to imply I’m publicly ostracizing you or you smell bad”. He doesn’t look directly at the other dude, because he’s not trying to be creepy, and up close he’s sure he definitely doesn’t recognize the guy from St. Vincent’s - he’s got the sort of face you’d remember.

Charlie’s socially aware enough by now to recognize that going to the same bus stop does not make you automatic friends, so Charlie’s intending to maintain solid eye contact with the pebbles on the concrete until either someone he knows shows up, or the bus does. But this guy keeps looking at Charlie. Charlie knows because he hears the leather on the jacket make a sort of shifting, squeaking sound every time he moves. Charlie swallows, tries to make himself smaller inside his coat. What does the guy want from him?

“Is there a particular reason,” the boy finally spits, “that you reek of  _rubber cement_?”

“Oh,” Charlie breathes out an uneasy laugh. “I was just sniffing a little glue on my way over here, no big deal.” Charlie is briefly worried that discount James Dean here is going to sell him out, so he offers, “Uh, I can share some, if you want?”

The guy snorts out a laugh. “That’s how you like to get high? Sniffing rubber cement? What, do you not know any pot sellers?”

“No, I, uh, I do actually,” Charlie says, nodding. “My friend Ronnie is actually a really good _weed dealer_.” He slightly over-pronounces it; he thinks the other kid might not be familiar with the terminology around weed, because Charlie’s never in his life heard someone use the phrase ‘pot seller’, and Charlie’s trying to subtly help him not get his ass kicked. “His dad grows it in the basement, and if Ronnie sells enough of it, his dad will squeeze his arm, so he’s a really motivated seller.”

“Squeeze his arm?” the other boy echoes.

“Well, yeah, you know,” Charlie says, and he reaches over and gives the guy’s bicep a light squeeze and a kind of light half-shake. “Like that. Quality father-son affection, you can’t get that on the streets, man.”

“That might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” the boy says, but his voice is completely monotone so Charlie thinks he’s probably exaggerating. He has to assume if it was the actual saddest thing he’d _ever_ heard, he’d at least be tearing up or something.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a bummer,” Charlie agrees, “but hey, man, it’s real good weed. You want me to introduce you? Ronnie will hook you right up.”

The boy fixes him with a cold and incredibly blue stare. “Look. My name is Dennis Reynolds. _Reynolds_ , okay, as in Frank and Barbara Reynolds?”

“Nice to meet you, Dennis,” Charlie smiles. “I’m Charlie Kelly. As in, uh, Bonnie Kelly?”

“What the shit is a Bonnie Kelly,” Dennis asks flatly.

“Well, she’s my mom,” Charlie replies. “I thought we were...are Frank and Barbara not your parents?”

“Frank and Barbara _Reynolds_ absolutely are my parents,” Dennis snaps. “You might have heard of them from being on the city council, the city planning team, the zoning board, the school board, pretty much every board, along with co-owning the Calvanese-Reynolds Shopping Plaza?”

“Oh shit, the plaza with Nelson’s Subs? Aw, I love a good Nelson,” Charlie says, grinning. “You’re so lucky, I bet you get to eat them all the time.”

“I’ve never had them,” Dennis sneers. “I don’t eat at any of my father’s establishments. It’s a bad business practice. Could lead to an accusation of favoritism, which could ruin a landowner’s name.”

“Oh please, you’ve eaten so many Veggie Supremes they’re talking about renaming it ‘The Dennis’,” a feminine voice suddenly pipes in. Charlie cranes his neck around Dennis to see a girl in a frankly unnerving metal contraption encircling her head and torso. It looks like it belongs in a museum, not on a human person in present time. Charlie has to stifle a wince as the girl attempts to hoist herself up next to Dennis and just kind of clatters awkwardly back to the ground. “Hi, I’m his sister, Deandra Reynolds. I don’t go to St. Joseph’s, obviously, because I’m not a man, but a bus for Notre Dame picks up here too! What’s your name?”

“Uh, Charlie,” he replies, “Charlie Kelly. I used to go to St. Vincent’s, you know?” He points up the street.

“The Catholic school?” Dennis asks. “Oh shit, did you get bad-touched by a priest?”

“You can’t just ask someone if they got molested, Dennis,” Deandra chides.

“Why not?”

"Well it’d be one thing if you knew he hadn’t been, but what if he had? That’d be…so...” Deandra purses her lips and turns to Charlie. “Well _I’m_ actually really _sorry_ if you got molested, Charlie,” she glares back at Dennis, “because I’m a _good person_ , and I care about you.”

“You care about him?” Dennis sneers. “You care about the little altar boy, Dee? The little altar boy you just now met? Cuz you’re a good person?”  
  
“I do care about him, Dennis, I care very deeply about my fellow humans just like, uh,” Deandra snaps her fingers in front of her face. “Oh, fuck. You went to Catholic school, Charlie, what’s that way-too-nice Catholic bitch’s name? Auntie, or, like, Mama something?”  

“Uh,” Charlie says, blinking a little dazedly. “Mother Teresa?”

“Thank you, yes,” Deandra smirks in Dennis’s face. “I’m like Mother Teresa. I’ve decided. That’s my new image. New school, new image.”

“You are not going to last five seconds trying to be nice to those public school bitches, Dee,” Dennis says, laughter bubbling in his voice. “They are not going to like you, or respect you, or do anything but mock you and your hideous metal exoskeleton now, and for all of time. And you will try to fight them, because you are classless and have zero self restraint when mocked, and your frail, ailing body will fail you, and you will be mocked even more. And furthermore, Deandra, trying to come up with a new persona for yourself is a seriously just futile endeavor for you that you might as well give up on now.”

“Y-you!” She jabbed a finger at him. “You spent weeks coming up with this...delinquent, wealthy, small name big ego persona, and you’re telling me…?”

“It’s called being rebellious rich, and it is gold, Deandra!” The cigarette in Dennis’s lips falls to the ground, he doesn’t seem to notice. “It shows that I have no limits to what I can and will do, both morally and financially! There is no limit to what my allyship can bring you! So who wouldn’t want to be allies with me, Dee?”

“Alright, well, in the person world, we call those people ‘friends’,” Deandra remarks, “and you still haven’t explained why…”

“Because I am going into a new school full of pliable young boys who haven’t had the upper-class upbringing and private school education that I have, sharpening my mind to a razor’s edge, molding me into the perfect person to just gently _ease_ them into doing my bidding,” Dennis grins. “Whereas you, Deandra, are stumbling your way into a school full of incredibly close-knit public school girls who have likely known each other since early elementary, already formed into friend groups, and have no tolerance for anything new entering their social sphere. And you are doing this while wearing a massive, cling-clanging piece of metal around an entire half of your body. You look like you’ve just come from a torture dungeon and are still wearing the stocks. Your absolute best case scenario at this point is that they pity you too much to laugh at you to your face, so they only do it behind your weak and creaky back.”

“You’re an asshole, Dennis,” Deandra says, her cheeks pink and her voice sounding thick and wobbly. “You knew I was worried, and you just…”

“Well I’d be worried too if I was going into high school dressed in vintage bondage gear. And it’s like Mom always says, Dee,” Dennis says, voice unapologetic. “It’s not mean if it’s true.”

“Fuck you,” Dee mutters. “I’m going back home.”

“Yeah, like Mom’s gonna let you skip.”

“I’ll sneak back in after she goes to work.”

“So, what, are you just never gonna go to school again?”

“I’ll figure something out!”

“He has a point,” Charlie finds himself piping in before he realizes.

Deandra sniffles. “Great. Thanks. Just what I needed, two people ragging on me.”

“No, I’m not…” Charlie groans. “Look, you have to go to school sometime. St. Vincent’s had a sister school, St…Margaret’s, I think it was?”

“Okay,” Deandra says. “So?”

“So they were the same as us, K-8,” Charlie explains. “Probably bigger, actually; people think it keeps girls chaste if they send them to Catholic school at an early age, it’s not the same concern with boys, which is a real problem if you think about it, but…”

“Get to the point, Charlie,” Deandra says, but her voice is so quiet with the slightest shimmer of hope, it sounds like she really needs someone to be soft with her, like maybe no one’s ever been soft with her in her whole life. Charlie’s heart kind of breaks.

“Well like I said, St. Vincent’s and St. Margaret’s are both right up the street, right? So most of those girls are probably going to Notre Dame, cuz most of the boys from St. Vincent’s are going here. And like, when I said Dennis is right, I meant he’s right that you do have to go to school eventually. If you go today, you’ll just be one of like, a whole ton of new people. Nobody’s gonna have time to notice if anyone’s dressed weird or too tall or if they smell like mothballs all the time, or, or whatever, man, it’s just gonna be new kid chaos!”

“Okay,” Deandra says, swallowing. “I guess that makes sense.”

“But you skip today, and you start tomorrow, or some other different day, and you’re gonna be one of like, I dunno, maybe a small handful of kids who all had that same idea, but people are gonna notice you tomorrow, man. And they’re gonna notice you even more if you come in any other day. They’re gonna be like, hey, who’s that girl, I know she wasn’t here yesterday, I would’ve saw her yesterday because of her…baaaaaa…” Charlie stops. “Your, uh, bangs! Or, uh, whatever.”

“I don’t have bangs, Charlie,” Deandra says, but she’s smiling.

“Speaking of Nelson’s Subs,” Dennis pipes in, eyes focused on the cigarette he’s lighting like he’s not really all that interested in their conversation. “I think Ingrid went to St. Margaret’s. Bet that means she’ll be going to Notre Dame, too.”

Deandra’s eyebrows raise at that. “Ooh, and she’ll still have all of her summer weight on, too.”

“Yeah, there you go,” Charlie affirms. “Find the fatty, stick with her, maybe start a mean nickname behind her back and she’ll absorb some of the blow for you.”

“Hm,” Deandra says. “Well, I thought you guys were just being mean to me, but that was actually kind of helpful, so thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Charlie says at the same time that Dennis remarks, “You still could crash and burn, so.”

They all stand there in relative silence, until Dee's bus comes, Dennis’s headphones playing barely-audible music from around his neck.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if this is something you wanna see more of please let me know!
> 
>  
> 
> (find me on tumblr: psychedelic-iridescent.tumblr.com)


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